That if a female cat pushes away a male cat it usually means they are pregnant...was right!

I was at the horses the other day and I was chattin to a friend of mine about this particular cat and how fat she looked. I said I think she's pregnant and she'd be due any day because of the incident with the tom (Am I right in thinking cats are pregnant for 3 months?) My sister thought this cat just needed worming!

Anyway, this morning saw the same cat again but she has lost the fatness and she was hanging around our straw bales. I said to my sister - if thats the cat that doesnt let you stroke her then shes had kittens because she was fat on Sunday! Sure enough I moved a bale of straw out and there were 3 little kittens in there.

On Sunday I moved a bale of straw out and found a dead kitten in a similar but not exact place to these 3 so Im worried that these wont survive either. The other kitten looked intact but I think they are probably all inter breeding because the farm had 2 cats when we first joined them.

Spading/castrating isnt an option because they arent our cats and we couldnt catch them anyway and the owner just says they are wild cats and not his responsibility!

So the question Im askin is... will these cats survive winter or have they been born too late??

Cats are pregnant for 63 to 70 days, so similar to dogs.

I honestly don't know what their chances of survival would be as I have no experience of kittens born outdoors like this -but kittens like puppies of course need to be kept really warm so that's problem number one. :(

Spading/castrating isnt an option because they arent our cats and we couldnt catch them anyway and the owner just says they are wild cats and not his responsibility!


Can you contact the RSPCA and ask if there is a programme in your area for neutering feral cats? I know that some cat charities sponsor this kind of thing in some areas. If the 'owner' says they are wild then I don't see why you couldn't ask?

Our cat is feral and must have been born around this time but he was taken in by a local cat welfare place and given to my daughters piano teacher for care while he was a kitten. Dont know if he would have survived in the wild.
Marion

We had two cats (mother and kitten) from the CPL.  The mother was found living wild with a number of kittens in April, we got the kitten and mother at the beginning of June, the kitten was about 3 months old when we got them so they had survived for about a month after being born around the beginning of March when it would have been reasonably cold.

The CPL have a trap & operate policy with feral cats, the cats are returned to whence they were captured after being neutered

I would definately ring the local rescue as they may come and check the kittens and possibly intervene if they think they are at risk. Cats can survive being born outdoors but it is very cold so it really depends on whether they can keep warm wher they are as kittens cannot keep themselves warm.